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October 2026 edition – executive summary
The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) released two companion publications on electric mobility on 24 September 2026: a continental strategic framework for the development of electric vehicles in Africa, and a model national road map intended to guide countries in drawing up electric-vehicle implementation frameworks.
A new UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2026/100 (Shongwe, Gandy, Nsabimana and Kilumelume) reports that the 2013 South Africa–China Strategic Trade Agreement is associated with a shift towards Chinese capital goods and higher firm-level capital–labour ratios, with aggregate employment stable and a modest upward trend in wages.
The UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2026/91 (Abagna, Davies, Riedel, Strecker and Worku) uses South African administrative tax data and finds that firms in Special Economic Zones generally underperform comparable non-zone firms on exports, investment, employment and productivity.
The media and policy table lists eight items from September 2026, covering South African formal employment and FDI data, local-content rules in the DRC and Zambia, the Dangote refinery IPO in Nigeria and groundbreaking in Kenya, solar power for mining in the DRC, and Uber’s withdrawal from several African markets.
Click here for the full text – October 2026
September 2026 edition – executive summary
Statistics South Africa published the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2026 (released 11 August 2026), the Manufacturing: Production and Sales release for June 2026 (released 11 August 2026), and the Mining: Production and Sales release for June 2026 (released 13 August 2026). The fourth item is the Absa/BER Purchasing Managers’ Index for July 2026 (released 1 August 2026, reported 3 August 2026).
Headline findings: South Africa’s official unemployment rate rose to 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026 from 32.7% in the first, with youth unemployment at 47.4% and the expanded rate at 46.3%; manufacturing production fell 1.7% year-on-year in June, a third consecutive monthly decline; mining production fell 4.0% year-on-year in June, led by platinum group metals and coal, and contracted 2.7% over the second quarter; and the Absa Manufacturing PMI fell to 46.8 in July from 47.3 in June, a second consecutive month in contractionary territory and a seven-month low.
Click here for the full text – September 2026
July 2026 edition – executive summary
This monthly research summary covers five items. The first is a pan-African flagship: the African Export-Import Bank’s African Trade Report 2026, launched in Cairo on 24 June 2026 under the theme “Leveraging Geopolitics for Trade and Industrialisation in Global Africa”. Three are South African official releases: Statistics South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product release for the first quarter of 2026 (published 9 June 2026), the Absa/BER Purchasing Managers’ Index for June 2026 (published 1 July 2026), and the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa’s statement on vehicle local content and the South African Automotive Masterplan 2035 (reported 1 July 2026, responding to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition’s parliamentary reply of 30 June 2026). The fifth is a research paper: ERSA Policy Paper 52 (Newman, published 1 June 2026), on the sources of South Africa’s manufacturing underperformance.
Headline findings reported by the in-window products: Africa’s real GDP growth rose from 3.4% in 2024 to 4.5% in 2025, intra-African trade grew 5.5% to US$213.8 billion, and the Afreximbank report sets out five industrialisation priorities; South African GDP grew 0.5% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2026 while manufacturing contracted 0.8% (a second consecutive decline) and recorded an annualised –R14.5 billion inventory drawdown; the Absa Manufacturing PMI fell to 47.3 in June from 50.8 in May, back into contractionary territory; and Naamsa reported that vehicle local content held broadly stable at about 39.7% over 2020–25 while the economic value of local content rose from R57.2bn to R126.8bn, against the Minister’s assessment of “negligible” progress toward the 60% localisation target for 2035.
June 2026 edition – executive summary
There are five key publications this month. Two are tied to the AfDB 2026 Annual Meetings in Brazzaville (25–29 May 2026). The first is the African Economic Outlook 2026 (launched 26 May, theme “Mobilising Africa’s Development Financing at Scale in a Fragmented World”). The second is the Africa Industrialisation Index 2025 and inaugural Africa Industrial Investment Barometer (launched 25 May).
The South African releases are Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for Q1 2026 (with companion manufacturing-production release and youth-and-labour-market release), and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s FY2026/27 Annual Performance Plan and Cabinet-adopted Industrial Development Strategy.
The ILO’s January 2026 World Employment and Social Outlook Trends report is included on the basis of its Sub-Saharan Africa decomposition being re-referenced at the Brazzaville meetings.
Headline findings: continental GDP growth projected at 4.2% in 2026, with an annual SDG development-financing gap exceeding US$1.3 trillion (AfDB AEO 2026); Morocco placed first on the AfDB AII 2025 at 0.8415 with South Africa second at 0.8396; North Africa absorbed 56% of cumulative continental industrial investment 2020–2025 (AfIIB); South African manufacturing employment +38,000 quarter-on-quarter and –90,000 year-on-year in Q1 2026, against a second consecutive 1.0% manufacturing-production contraction (Stats SA); the dtic FY2026/27 plan targets 100,000 employment opportunities; ILO reports SSA informality near 90% and SSA working poverty above 50%.
May 2026 edition – executive summary
Three Tier 1 multilateral flagships — UNECA’s Economic Report on Africa 2026 (2 April), the World Bank’s Africa Economic Update on Making Industrial Policy Work in Africa (8 April), and the IMF’s Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook (16 April) — together provide an unusually unified diagnostic of the African industrial-policy moment. Continental growth is projected at 4.1–4.3% in 2026, but the consensus has shifted toward worrying about translation: macro stabilisation has not, on its own, delivered structural transformation.
The World Bank’s “three implementation gaps” framing — selection, dosage, complementarity — is the most operationally useful contribution of the month and is supported by parallel ILO work on AI and manufacturing (Geneva tripartite, 17 April) and by two new UNU-WIDER working papers analysing climate-driven income shocks in South Africa (WP 2026/42) and the firm-level financing constraints binding green industrial transition in BIIS economies (WP 2026/39, including SA).
The clearest implication for the Centre’s research agenda is that industrial-policy effectiveness in Africa is being re-cast as a question of fiscal envelope, financial-architecture, and complementary infrastructure rather than instrument choice — a shift that aligns well with the Centre’s own structuralist research priorities. South African data add a positive headline (Absa Manufacturing PMI rose to 52.8 in April, returning to expansion) and a forward signal (DTIC FY2026/27 plan targets 100,000 industrial jobs).